Energy

Getting to the source of data-visualization aberrations is a big problem in big data. EECS doctoral student Eugene Wu with Sam Madden, professor of computer science and engineering in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have released a new tool, called DBWipes, that pinpoints aberrations and determines which data sources to investigate. Read more.

Vladimir Bulovic, the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technology and associate dean for innovation in MIT’s School of Engineering, with MIT professor of chemistry Moungi Bawendi and graduate students Chia-Hao Chuang and Patrick Brown have developed new quantum dot photovoltaic cells that demonstrate significant efficiency in solar cells with no need for high temperature or vacuum conditions to operate -- or to be produced. Read more.

Marc Baldo, MIT professor of electrical engineering has teamed with MIT’s Troy Van Voorhis, professor of chemistry and other researchers to understand the theory behind singlet excitonic fission -- a process by which extra electrons are produced by incoming photonic energy -- first observed in the 1960s. This new understanding of what materials will generate this added energy has potential for creating solar cells that demonstratew up to 25 per cent increased efficiency. Read more.

An MIT team whose integrated chip restores lost power to partially shaded solar panels — achieving double the energy capture improvement of similar technologies — won big on Monday night at the seventh annual MIT Clean Energy Prize (CEP) competition. Five of the six members of Unified Solar, the winning team, in this high profile competition, are graduate students in the laboratory of EECS Professor Steeve Leeb. Read more.

Rahul Sarpeshkar, professor in the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department and head of the Analog Circuits and Biological Systems Group in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) is featured by the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) at MIT for his work that blends both biological (wet) and electronic analog circuits (dry) in research that could lead to newly engineered immune cells that could detect cancer cells and kill them, for example. Read more.

Prof. Steven B. Leeb met with Sharon Burke, assistant secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs, about the non-intrusive load monitor developed at MIT, during Burke's visit to the Army Base Camp Integration Laboratory at Fort Devens, Mass. The monitor can look at an energy grid and break down energy use by individual devices plugged into a system. Read more.

Until now the theoretical and much studied quasiparticle known as the exciton — responsible for the transfer of energy within devices such as solar cells, LEDs, and semiconductor circuits — has never been observed in action. Now researchers in the Center for EXcitonics in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at MIT including EECS professors Marc Baldo and Vladimir Bulovic, and investigators at the City College of New York have imaged excitons' motions directly. Read more.

As the director of MIT’s BigData@CSAIL industry initiative, and the co-director of the more research-focused Intel Science and Technology Center (ISTC) for Big Data, EECS professor and CSAIL principal investigator Sam Madden talks with the MIT News Office about the growing complexity of data. From social networks and images to real time financial transactions, Madden talks about the issues (and opportunities) of what to do with this data. Read more.